King's Reach
King's Reach and 'Barron's Touch '''are towns in a disputed territory between the nation states of Baldur and Goneril. Although technically the same township, the name given to the area differs depending on the regime currently in control of the town. A farming community settled in 1058 and incorporated into Baldur in 1432, it has been home to several traditional communities of humans, elves, and halflings. In 1439 SA, the illithid Potentate Xoth appointed an adventuring healer with the Black Hand Corporation named Pyotar Umarov to be leader of King's Reach and censor of the northern territories of Baldur. By 1440, it was an affluent residential town noted for its excellent public medicine. Their combined population was 5,981 at the 1440 census. After the Revolution of 1441, however, the town became militarized as a major staging ground for what would be Highman Grax's northern campaign against Goneril, and as a result the population surged to nearly 30,000, primarily those serving the Revolutionary Army of the Senate under Malicor. Many of the mass executions during The Culling happened here, and Barron's Touch was hit hard by the Red Plague soon after declaration of hostilities. In Contemporary Eon Pyotar Umarov had been running a covert war against Goneril with the aid of arms from crimelord Marcus Fairlan. In October of 1441 SA, Marcus ordered a shipment of weapons from the Malvont-based crimelord Janadan Vishnu. When weapons smuggler Baudin Dommilan and his crew arrived with this shipment, Marcus hired them to journey north along King's Road to King's Reach and deliver the weapons to Pyotar. He also mentioned that he would appreciate it if they kept an eye out for a particular golden amulet with a white jewel in the center. Marcus sent one of his men, Bookish, with the company. Shortly after Baudin and his company departed, Marcus also sent one of his Wolves' Milk dealers and all-around bitches, Ethan of Malvont, to find the amulet. He promised Ethan that the amulet would help him achieve what he wanted most as an incentive to ensure that Ethan did as he asked. Once in King's Reach, Baudin and his crew fell over all three pieces of the amulet that Marcus wanted in rapid succession. Just outside of King's Reach, they were approached by a man in red who gave them one-third of it in trust of them bringing him the other two thirds. He told them that Pyotar Umarov and Brezcar the Bold, the leaders of the human and orc communities, respectively, each had one of the other pieces. Pyotar refused to give them his piece of the amulet, saying that its power was too great to relinquish so lightly, and no amount of persuasion on Jenka's behalf would convince him otherwise. However, he expressed interest in collecting the rest of the amulet via Baudin's group. Meanwhile, Baudin's lieutenants Yolanda and Ulfgar struck a deal with Brezcar that they would bring him the rest of the amulet if his warriors would dredge up the centerpiece from the bottom of the local lake. (I think Ulfgar assisted.) Shortly thereafter, Baudin ran into Ethan and his not!girlfriend Fennyn. After a lot of screaming, bluff checks, paralysis, and threats of busting a cap in Baudin's ass, everyone kind of made friends. Baudin and co. then reviewed their options: they could give the amulet to Marcus, to Tyro, to Brezcar, to Pyotar, or keep it for themselves. (The suggestion of giving it to Ethan was met with HAHAHAHA no.) The question ''really became: how many people can we get to pay us for this amulet at once? The next day, Baudin and Pyotar finished negotiations over the payment for the weapons shipment. Party opinion was still split over to whom to give the amulet: Yolanda wanted it to go to Brezcar, Jenka wanted it to go to Pyotar, Bookish wanted it to go to Marcus, and Baudin kind of wanted to keep it for himself. (Nobody loves Tyro. Well, they loved the idea of all of the gold he was promising them, but that's about it.) Of course, there was the issue of still not having the complete amulet. This issue was shelved in favor of finding out, upon meeting with Brezcar again, that he was going to lead an army into King's Reach proper to take it back from Pyotar and the humans. While not everyone was enthusiastic about joining forces with Brezcar on this one, Yolanda and Ulfgar had been made honorary members of Brezcar's tribe, and so only felt it fair to go into battle with him. Thus, Baudin's crew and hangers-on were chilling near the town square when everything went balls-up. First, the fountain in the town square started running acid rather than water. Then Tyro and his sister Royt Avampour showed up looking for their amulet. Next, Brezcar and his army went toe to toe with a small army that Pyotar had been amassing and equipping. (Hey, wait a minute...) Shortly after that, Marcus Fairlan walked into town. Bookish ran to his side and summoned a black dragon, which dragged Ethan and Fennyn into the fight. Also, the townspeople started fighting back. With exploding bars. Somewhere in the middle of this chaos, Baudin threw up his hands, said, "Fuck it," and started attacking anything that moved. This battle concluded with Royt, Bookish, Marcus, and several townspeople dead; most of the armies, Baudin's group, and Tyro all fleeing in various directions; and a giant thumping dragon chilling on the roof of the temple to Pelor. As Baudin's crew had taken refuge inside said temple, they decided to try to go deeper into the temple. After a frustrating eight hours culminating in "CAST LIGHT, YOU FUCKERS." "I don't have that prepared." "...I don't know how." "FFFFFFFF-", the party discovered that Pyotar was doing a lot more in secret than just coordinating a quiet spat over the border of King's Reach. Secret library, secret water trap with the code linked to the amulet, secret thirty-foot pit with stone coffins at the bottom, secret kobold in a box, secret being a vampire -- aw, shit. A lengthy battle later, both Pyotar and Fennyn were dead, and Jenka was clutching her hair and saying, "He was not a vampire when we -- " "GRANNY, DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE." The party now had all three pieces of the amulet, but were running kind of low on people who would pay them for it. They decided to loot what they could from Pyotar's place and then GTFO back to Malvont. After some excitement involving a tweaking-out deathlock and the dragon still being on the roof of the temple, Baudin and his crew booked it out of King's Reach and raced back to Baldur just in time to witness the first battle of the Revolution of 1441. Pyotar, Bookish, Royt, and Marcus were all eventually resurrected or otherwise returned from the dead. Hell, Pyotar might even still be leader of King's Reach. Who knows. Category:Locations Category:Cities Category:Northern Continent